Grants structure in an intergovernmental fiscal game

Abstract. Systems of intergovernmental grants change over time. We explain this observation in terms of political and economic shocks in a noncooperative game between federal and provincial governments. The effects on the equilibrium grants structure arising from political disagreement, fiscal burden, increased revenue instability, and federalistic behaviour are examined. Our results provide a new theoretical perspective on grants. We show that the role of matching grants may be to influence the pattern of social spending by provincial or state governments, while conditional lump-sum grants are used simultaneously to determine the composition of the tax burden across the levels of government. Received: January 2001 / accepted: April 2002 We are grateful for the helpful comments received from Richard Bird, Amihai Glazer, and two anonymous referees.     

Budgetary shocks and revenue adjustment: How governments respond to unexpected fiscal shocks

This paper uses panel data from seven Canadian provinces which received Equalization payments over the period 1980/81 to 1995/96 to examine how provinces adjust own-source revenue in response to past budget shocks. Governments respond symmetrically to past own-source revenue shocks: they increase or reduce own-revenue by $0.75 for every unexpected dollar shock in own-source revenue last year. In contrast, revenue responses to past grant shocks are asymmetric. Provinces lower own-source revenue by $0.87 in response to an unexpected extra dollar from Equalization last year. But, they make no adjustment following an unexpected Equalization shortfall. The magnitude of these responses suggest that provinces see a significant component of these shocks to be persistent. Lastly, the results with respect to past spending shocks are mixed. In contrast to recent empirical results on asymmetric responses to changes in grants, the results in this paper suggest that, at least in the short run, unexpected increases in Equalization are unlikely to have a large, stimulative effect on government spending.Received: February 2003, Accepted: November 2003, JEL Classification: H71, H77T. Snoddon: The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of Ron Kneebone, participants at the CPEG conference, Calgary, June 2002, and seminar participants in the Department of Economics and Finance, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, September 2002. I would also like to thank the two anonymous referees for their thoughtful comments.     

预算结余索取权安排、棘轮效应和预算松驰关系研究

预算结余和棘轮效应涉及的均是本期对下期的影响。本文研究这两种制度安排对预算编制松驰和预算执行松驰的影响。采用实验方法收集数据,统计分析发现：（1）在各种预算索取权安排下,预算责任人都有制造预算编制松驰的激励;当棘轮效应不存在时,各种制度安排下的预算编制松驰程度无显著差异;当棘轮效应存在时,不同预算结余制度安排下,预算编制松驰程度不同,留用利益比例与预算编制松驰负相关;（2）当棘轮效应不存在时,如果预算结余留用比例足够高,预算责任人可能没有制造预算执行松驰的激励;当棘轮效应存在时,在各种预算索取权安排下,预算责任人都有制造预算编制松驰的激励;无论棘轮效应是否存在,在不同的预算结余索取权安排下,预算执行松驰程度不同,留用比例与预算执行松驰负相关。（3）棘轮效应对预算编制松驰有抑制作用,对预算执行松驰有促进作用。     

Baseline budgeting for continuous improvement.

This article is designed to introduce the techniques used to convert traditionally maintained department budgets to baseline budgets. This entails identifying key activities, evaluating for value-added, and implementing continuous improvement opportunities. Baseline Budgeting for Continuous Improvement was created as a result of a newly named company president's request to implement zero-based budgeting. The president was frustrated with the mind-set of the organization, namely, "Next year's budget should be 10 to 15 percent more than this year's spending." Zero-based budgeting was not the answer, but combining the principles of activity-based costing and the Just-in-Time philosophy of eliminating waste and continuous improvement did provide a solution to the problem.     

基于组织结构的高校绩效预算考评体系构建

针对当前高校绩效预算管理研究中存在的考评责任主体不明确问题,论文试以高校组织结构为平台,以构建一个闭环的高校预算绩效考评体系为目标,分别从建立高校绩效预算评价体系,构建高校绩效预算考评指标,制定与考评结果相配套的促进机制三个方面对基于组织结构的高校绩效预算考评体系进行了研究。     

从传统绩效预算走向新绩效预算的路径选择

从传统绩效预算走向新绩效预算，代表了现代预算制度的发展方向。20世纪50年代，胡佛委员会倡导的传统绩效预算由于种种原因失败了。随着政府治理变革的不断深化，新绩效预算重新出现在当代预算改革的视野中。本文通过对比传统绩效预算与新绩效预算的成败得失，分析新绩效预算的主要特点——取得了立法机关的支持、适时的政府会计改革、更科学的绩效评价体系和更致力于绩效信息的使用。这些经验对于中国现代预算制度的建设具有重要的启示价值。     

The Paradoxes and Pitfalls of Revived Fiscal Activism

This paper critiques the revival of fiscal activism by the G20 in response to the global financial crisis of 2008–9. It first re‐examines the international macroeconomic conditions leading up to that crisis, before highlighting the paradoxes and pitfalls of revived fiscal activism for advanced economies. It argues that the harmful legacy of budget deficits and escalated public debt levels spawned further financial crises, most notably in southern Europe, and generally damaged household and business confidence to the detriment of private consumption and investment spending, which has delayed economic recovery. To undertake the repair necessary to the fiscal accounts of most advanced economies, the paper proposes that government spending programmes need to be thoroughly reviewed against the key principles of public finance.     

The fiscal behavior of municipal governments: 1905–1930

This report discusses a new set of annual U. S. municipal expenditure estimates. These estimates deal with the 1905–1930 period. While these expenditures are seen to be influenced by urbanization and price inflation, it is clear that real per capita spending rose substantially during the period. The distribution of municipal spending between current and capital accounts is seen to be associated with relative price change. A model of the structure of budget decisions—emphasizing an incremental budgeting format—is developed. Estimates of the structural parameters suggest that this model adequately represents the data; and that municipal decision makers responded in a regular and rational fashion to shifts in relative prices and nominal sources of funds.     

A Field Study of the Emerging Practice of Beyond Budgeting in Industrial Companies: An Institutional Perspective

The accounting literature differentiates between key functions of budgeting, such as planning, control, and evaluation, and mostly assumes that firms carry out an annual budgeting exercise. The purpose of this paper is to explore how an institutionalised practice, such as budgeting, changes and to examine the implications of such change for the functions of budgeting. We conduct a field study of five industrial companies that recently either abandoned their annual budgeting system or radically simplified it. Our findings suggest that although new management accounting tools replace the budgeting system, the planning, control, and evaluation functions remain. We observe two approaches for the emerging practice of Beyond Budgeting. In the first approach, firms differentiate between target setting and forecasting. This differentiation appears to be a driver for budget abandonment. In the second approach, target setting and forecasting remain interlinked and many characteristics of traditional annual budgeting remain, albeit in a simplified form.     

烟草商业企业预算控制存在的问题及改进对策

预算控制是通过预算的形式规范各部门行为、调整与修正各部门行为与目标的偏差,保证各级管理目标和企业战略目标实现的过程。本文立足于烟草商业企业预算控制的现实情况,分析了其在预算目标、预算编制内容、预算编制方法、预算执行与考核等方面存在的问题,并提出了相应的改进对策。     

Sophisticated capital budgeting systems and their association with corporate performance

Prior empirical studies have been unable to establish any clear relationship existing between the capital budgeting practices adoted and corporate performance. This may partly be explained by the restrictive definition of capital budgeting employed in these studies. The present study, based on data gathered from 144 major companies, examines the relationship between the degree of sophistication identified in capital budgeting systems and corporate performance levels achieved over a number of years, when controlling for the interactive corporate characteristics of size, risk, capital intensity and industry class. The results are surprising. They reveal a consistent, significant negative association between the level of capital budgeting sophistication and corporate performance.     

政府审计对预算违规的作用：抑制还是诱导？——基于中央部门预算执行审计数据的实证研究

预算执行审计本来是抑制预算机会主义行为的一种制度安排,如果制度安排不当,则可能诱导预算机会主义行为。理论分析表明,政府审计对于公共部门预算违规究竟发挥抑制作用还是诱导,是由预算违规的审计发现率、审计处理率和审计处罚率共同决定的,审计处罚率是关键变量,预算单位是否违规是根据政府审计机关的审计发现率、审计处理率和审计处罚率来做出策略性选择。根据中央部门预算执行审计的数据分析表明,预算执行审计不是抑制了预算违规,而是诱导了预算违规,产生这个结果的主要原因是审计处罚没有力度。     

Applying Strategic Management Theories in Public Sector Organizations: Developing a typology

This article discusses the utility of two different strategic management theories in different types of public organizations including contemporary New Public Management-based public organizations, namely Porter’s strategic positioning model and the resource-based view of strategy. We argue that possibilities for applying these theories vary depending on the type of public organizations involved, and are less appropriate in traditional settings but more relevant in autonomized and market-like service-delivery organizations. We further propose that their increased applicability depends on three specific conditions: the degree of administrative autonomy, performance-based budgeting and market-like competition. We give empirical examples drawn from public services in the UK and Denmark. We call for more exploration of these (and other) strategic management approaches within contemporary public services organisations but also more exploration of the limitations of these frameworks.     

一种基于相对风险的风险预算方法

风险预算是针对积极投资管理者进行的,所以我们预算和控制的风险主要来自于相对风险而不是绝对风险。本文中的风险预算方法则是在相对风险的基础上,利用边际跟踪误差、相对于基准的调整量、积极因子和积极beta系数等一系列相对概念。通过两个最优化模型,分别在战略资产配置和战术资产配置过程中,将风险配置于投资管理者和管理者资产,并且根据投资者,给定的管理者风险贡献和管理者实际风险贡献之间的误差,进行及时的动态调整,从而完成风险预算的整个过程。     

A Theoretical Analysis of the Impact of Adopting Rolling Budgets,Activity-Based Budgeting and Beyond Budgeting

Budgeting accomplishes many goals in an organization and evaluating the potential impact of a change is difficult. I investigate the organization-wide effects of three distinct budgeting alternatives (rolling budgets, activity-based budgeting and beyond budgeting) using a model that incorporates three important budgeting functions: forecasting, operational planning and performance evaluation. From the perspective of the whole organization, each budgeting alternative improves profits. I then examine the department preferences for each alternative when each function is under the control of a different department and each department has its own, department-specific performance metric. Forecasting is judged on the variance of the base demand forecast, operational planning on the expected unit capacity costs and performance evaluation on the salesperson's expected action. In my model all departments always favor rolling forecasts, while only one department always favors beyond budgeting (or activity-based budgeting). For beyond budgeting and activity-based budgeting, the preferences of the two other departments vary depending upon the model parameters.     

BUDGET ALLOCATION IN A UK UNIVERSITY: CONTRASTING PERIODS OF RESOURCE AVAILABILITY WITH RESOURCE SCARCITY*

This paper seeks to identify variables which explain variations in budget allocations in a UK university using a pooled database relating to two periods: one of resource availability, the other of resource scarcity. the results over both periods indicate, consistent with previous research, that a combination of workload and power proxies explains a very high proportion of budget allocations. However, analysis of the two periods revealed that: (i) incremental budgeting, which was observed to be in operation during the period of resource availability, was not supplanted by comprehensive budgeting during the period of resource scarcity, (ii) the impact of power proxies on budget allocation did not materially change in response to changes in levels of resource availability, and (iii) compared with internally based power, externally based power (as proxied) had neither a greater impact on resource allocation during the period of resource scarcity nor a lower impact during the period of resource availability as hypothesized.     

高校协作型财务预算管理

高校预算编制的类型有汇总型预算、分块型预算、自下而上型预算、自上而下型预算、协作型预算等方式,实施协作型预算管理的要点主要包括预算编制方法、预算编制程序、预算编制沟通、预算金额确定、预算公平透明、预算控制管理、预算执行进度、预算考核评价等,必须环环相扣,才能达到预算管理的目的。     

中国现代财政制度构建的目标、进程与现状评估

按照财政改革目标,2020年是我国现代财政制度基本建成之年。在本轮改革中,直接税比重提升有限,税收结构有待优化,地方税体系尚未建立;支出结构有待优化,政府职能转变尚未体现。预算制度中,全面规范尚待提升,公开透明尚需加强;绩效管理仍需扎实推进,预算标准尚待完善。财政体制在维持既有财力分配的同时,划分了事权和支出责任,但地方还是依赖于中央,分税制逐渐蜕变为分钱制。围绕国家治理现代化,中国现代财政制度的构建还有待在财政投入、财政支出、财政制度以及财政体制等方面持续推进。     

The Productivity of Government Spending in Asia: 1983–2000

Leightner [The Changing Effectiveness of Key Policy Tools in Thailand. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for East Asian Development Network, EAON Working Paper 19(2002)x0219-6417] develops a new analytical technique, named Reiterative Truncated Projected Least Squares (RTPLS), which produces 1/2 the error of OLS when omitted variables interact with the included independent variable. In this paper, RTPLS is applied to annual panel data on government spending and GDP from 1983 to 2000 for 23 developing Asian and Pacific countries. RTPLS produces estimates for the government spending multiplier for these countries and shows how omitted variables have affected these multipliers across countries and over time.JEL Classification: C13, E62, O23     

Capital rationing

This article deals with the current state of the theory and methods of capital budgeting under conditions of capital rationing. The focus is on the need for adequate decision support for management and planners dealing with capital budgeting problems. Mention is made of some modern textbooks on capital budgeting and these are found to give scant treatment to capital rationing. A general optimisation model is used in presenting and discussing some major theoretical contributions and proposed methods of calculation in this field.